By JOHN T. CUNNINGHAM
and JAY JOHNSTON
National Geographic Staff
Illustrations by National Geographic
photographer W. D. VAUGHN
STATEN ISLAND FERRY
New York's
Seagoing Bus
One of the few rides that can
still be bought for a nickel,
the Staten Island Ferry gives its
passengers a front-row bench for
the daily drama of the Nation's
busiest harbor
PROPELLERS CHURNING, Miss New
York plows toward Staten Island on her
five-mile, 25-minute run across New
York Harbor. With a thousand passengers
topside and two dozen vehicles in her craw,
the big barn-red queen pulses at a steady 14
knots through Anchorage Channel. Off her
broad bow the spires of lower Manhattan
grow ever dimmer in the haze of a midsummer
afternoon.
Staten Island ferryboats never turn around
on their eternal shuttle: their bows always
point toward the Battery. With a rudder, a
propeller, and a pilothouse at each end, Miss
New York travels equally well in either direc
tion. Bow and stern appear almost identical,
but the single black stack is a trifle nearer
the bow, as in most vessels.
As she beats her way across the Upper Bay,
traffic swarms about her flanks: tankers and
warships, scavenger scows and sleek yachts;
muscular tugs nudging bargeloads of coal,
scrap iron, and freight cars; sightseeing boats
circling Manhattan or heading for the Statue
of Liberty. Shrill whistles mingle with the
melodious clang of bell buoys and the cries
of winging gulls.
Operating around the clock-only ten min
utes apart during rush hours-ten ferryboats
serve the 40,000-odd Staten Islanders who
commute to and from jobs in Manhattan. Last
year the boats carried nearly 24,000,000 pas
sengers, logging a total of 319,370 miles.
Staten Island, officially the Borough of
Richmond, is the least populous of New York
City's five boroughs and the only one without
direct bridge and tunnel connections to Man
hattan. But most residents don't object. They
cherish the island's isolation, its bucolic air,
its skyscraperless towns. And they look upon
the ferryboats with the same affection San
Franciscans hold for their cable cars.
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